A model of autobiographical memory & its changes in PTSD

描述（由申请人提供）：拥有自传式记忆需要几个神经/行为系统的整合，包括视觉意象、听觉意象、多模态空间意象、情感、叙事推理和执行搜索。当它们一起工作时，这些系统会产生一种完整的、与情境相适应的回忆，这种回忆带来的是一种不会压倒一切的重温感。创伤后应激障碍（PTSD）是一种影响大约8%成年人的综合症，这种整合失败了。自愿记忆，尤其是创伤记忆，往往更加碎片化。不由自主的记忆往往令人烦恼，伴随着压倒性的感官意象、情绪和重温。该研究首次尝试量化在有或没有PTSD的人检索自传式记忆时，理论激励系统的相对活动和相互关系，从而为更好地理解自传式记忆和PTSD提供了可能。我们将要求a)越南战争时期的退伍军人，b)年龄匹配的非退伍军人，c)有或没有创伤后应激障碍症状的本科生在自传式记忆时报告这些系统。为了理解自传式记忆的基本运作，我们将对记忆进行比较：创伤后应激障碍发病前后的比较，创伤性记忆与非创伤性记忆的比较，积极记忆与消极记忆的比较，以及自愿记忆与非自愿记忆的比较。该分析包括在个体内部进行的相关性，以测试认知理论，以及在个体之间进行的相关性，以允许对认知风格、情绪、个性和共病疾病进行稳定的测量。我们的设计允许在同一数据集中集成两种类型的分析的不同寻常的步骤。为了理解叙事推理的变化，我们将研究创伤性事件是否成为人们生活叙事的中心，以及它是否会影响他们对生命历程的总体期望。为了试图理解情绪系统，我们将会看到关于本能情绪反应的报告是否比关于情绪强度的认知报告更能预测其他因素。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Having an autobiographical memory requires the integration of several neural/behavioral systems, including visual imagery, auditory imagery, multi-modal spatial imagery, emotions, narrative reasoning, and executive search. When they work together, these systems produce an integrated, context-appropriate recollection that comes with a sense of reliving that is not overpowering. In posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a syndrome which affects approximately 8 percent of the adult population, this integration fails. Voluntary memories, especially of trauma, tend to be more fragmented. Involuntary memories are often troubling, coming with overpowering sensory imagery, emotions, and reliving. The proposed research is the first attempt to quantify the relative activity and interrelations of theoretically motivated systems when an autobiographical memory is retrieved by people with and without PTSD, thus offering the potential for a better understanding of both autobiographical memory and PTSD. We will ask a) Vietnam-era combat veterans, b) age-matched non-veterans, and c) undergraduates with and without PTSD symptoms to report on these systems while they are having an autobiographical memory. To understand the basic operations of autobiographical memory, comparisons will be for memories: from before and after the onset of PTSD, for traumatic vs. non-traumatic memories, for positive vs. negative memories, and for voluntary vs. involuntary memories. The analysis involves correlations done within individuals to test cognitive theories and between individuals to allow stable measures of cognitive style, mood, personality, and comorbid disorders. Our design allows the unusual step of integrating both types of analysis in the same data set. To try to understand changes in narrative reasoning, we will examine whether the traumatic event becomes central in people's life narrative and whether it affects their expectations of the life course in general. To try to understand the emotional system we will see whether reports of visceral emotional reactions are better predictors of other factors than are more cognitive reports of emotional intensity.